Neobux Paid Me

I finally reached the $2.00 minimum payout on Neobux and cashed out. They paid me almost instantly. By the time I opened a new tab and logged into Paypal, my payment was already there:



It's $1.98 because Neobux apparently takes fees out when they pay you. They inform you of this when you go to cash out, though.

I would like to stress that this was done WITHOUT a premium account, without renting referrals, and with no actual referrals (nobody clicked my referral link, nobody loves me... *sniff*).

You'll also see a payment from Ciao - my final payment, actually. Took them about a month, in comparison.

I also recently requested a prize from Points2Shop. It was a pretty cheap price - a CD from a band I happen to like, used, for about 3 bucks plus maybe another dollar or two for shipping. It didn't come up in the Points2Shop searches, I had to manually enter the product ID, but I wasn't told it had to be specially requested or anything, so hopefully the request will go through normally. If so, it should arrive in a few days.

I've been plinking away at Swagbucks, as usual. Swagbucks and Neobux are favorites of mine, by now. I like ReviewStream but I've been having difficulty thinking up new reviews (that they'll accept at full price, anyway). Same with Associated Content. Those two definitely take more time and energy, although they pay a lot better.

Regarding Surveyspot, I have not yet qualified for a single paying survey. Regarding Opinion Outpost, many of the surveys they offer seem to be surveys I can also take through Dollar Surveys. I'd rather get the 1 buck (transferred to my Paypal within a week) than "points" I have to save up, so it's not hard to guess why I tend to go with Dollar Surveys. That, and they don't ask for tons and tons of personal information about myself.

Swagbucks Now Offers Paypal

So I just noticed through the Twitter feed that Swagbucks now offers a $5 Paypal to the address you signed up for Swagbucks with. Since I've redeemed gift cards from them in the past, I know that they definitely come through on their prizes. So this is good news for those of you who are only interested in cash. A $5 gift certificate from Amazon still costs slightly more than half of the 80 Swagbucks that a $5 Paypal apparently costs - but sometimes, you just need cash.

List O' Survey Sites Continues, July 1st - Plus Other Updates

NOT WORTH MY TIME:
http://consumer-opinions.com/ - looks very amateurish and the 'Contest rules' section is very out of date.
forummodalis.com - portal page
http://www.survey550.com/ - 404
http://marketprofiles.net/ - looks amateurish. Also, you can only be entered in a drawing to win prizes. Why bother when you can take surveys elsewhere and be paid every time?
allpaidsurveys.com - not an actual survey site. Worth exploring for its links to other survey sites but they are not well-organized. Also has links to very annoying I WILL SELL U MY SEACRET METHOD!!1 type websites.
survey904.com - Looks legitimate and professional but I can't see anywhere for survey-takers to sign up
webmysteryshoppers.com - parked portal page
survey552.com - 404
zoomerang.com - 404
survey087.com - useless link list
foodquiz.com - no longer offering surveys through the foodquiz.com website
consumercorner.com - site is closed
onlineval.com - link list
survey233.com - 404
surveypayday.com - link list
isay.com - parked/portal page
preres.com - in order to participate, you must go to the opinionwizard.com website
firstlook.com - does not appear to be a survey site any longer
survey446.com - 404
survey889.com - portal page
survey767.com - portal page
survey153.com - portal page
survey199.com - link list/portal page
survey327.com - portal page
surveysignup.com - parked/portal page
surveychoice.com - 404
researchhouse.ca - no longer appears to be a survey site
focusgroups.com - lists focus group locations, etc. but does not appear to be a survey site
surfbuzz.com - parked/portal page
quesionmarket.com - portal site
questionmarket.com - no longer accepting new registrants
gmrnet.com - offers "a chance to win prizes", looks amateurish


WORTH LOOKING AT FURTHER:
consumerlink.com
http://www.gmi-mr.com/
mysurvey.com - I believe this may be affiliated with Mypoints.com somehow
https://www.surveysavvy.com
http://focusline.com/ - has been around since 1996. Most of the page refers to 2008 dates, so I'm a bit worried it may be outdated.
gozing.com - Clicking on the BBB Accredited link on the bottom leads to a page indicating that its accredition has lapsed (as of this date, in any case). It's apparently run by Greenfield Online. I don't know how good/bad it is, its BBB rating looks like it's B- right now, and indicates that "This company's business is providing the sales of cellular phones, accessories and survey programs" - paid surveys aren't mentioned. It looks interesting but I would be wary.
product-testing.com
songpeople.com - looks interesting. Not surveys, but interesting.
pickthehits.com - I don't know what to make of this one, you have to contact them via email - I probably will.
userworks.com
opinionwizard.com
ithinkinc.com
executiveadvisoryboard.com
cobbey.com
buzzback.com
jurytest.com - this one looks odd, but interesting
surveysavvy.com
busreslab.com

Other Updates:
Thanks to Reviewstream, I can pay my student loan payment. Combined with money I made from Associated Content, money from doing some odd jobs for other people and some money I received as a birthday gift, I am also able to pay my phone bill. I've been worried that all of this was a huge waste of time, but if I was able to pay 2 bills, it wasn't. I will also be able to buy my cousin a birthday gift with the gift cards I earned through Swagbucks, which is nice and would otherwise be impossible (as I am essentially flat broke after paying bills).

DollarSurveys.net still hasn't deposited anything in my Paypal account. Well, guys, it's been a week and I'm close to calling that one a bust. Edit: DollarSurveys actually paid me today - $3.25. I'll post images tomorrow

At Points2Shop, I'm close to the 1000 point mark just through taking stupid easy Daily Surveys. I'd like to save up a decent number of points before ordering something and possibly being able to vouch for the site once my prize arrives. I probably could order something now (10 bucks is about where money starts getting 'useful' on Amazon) but I'd rather just wait.

A relative sent me an email with a link to this Yahoo! User Experience Panel. It's Yahoo! so I feel pretty safe assuming it's legit. I don't know if it'll help anyone - I'm guessing the odds of being selected are pretty low.

When I went into this, I expected to find a fistful of scams. I've definitely found my fair share of scams, but Internet, you surprise me.

Progress, Monday June 22.

Associated Content accepted another article. It's currently processing, and I hope it posts later today.

I redeemed my third Swagbucks prize, another $5.00 Amazon gift card.

MyPoints - I finally have enough points for the $10.00 Bath & Body Works gift card, however, some of those points are still "pending" and I can't order it until they officially post.

Sendearnings - up to $16.93 (cashout is $30.00)

ReviewStream - Writing several reviews a day and up to $18.80 (cashout is $50.00). A dozen more are still pending. You can find links to posted reviews here.

Neobux - up to 50 whole cents!

Points2Shop - 764 points. Not really a 'minimum' cashout, but it's the equiv. of about $7.64 on Amazon. Got my sights set on a $25.00 pair of 'pirate' boots. It's gonna be a while. Some offers I completed last week are still 'pending' but others post almost immediately - I'm hoping this doesn't turn into another GamingLagoon situation.

Survey Spot - As of yet, I have not qualified for any paying reviews.

MyLot- have been signing in and posting every few days, I'm up to $2.54 (that only took, what, 6 months?).

Gaminglagoon - What's that? My pending offers are still pending? Surely, you jest.

I have found a few other places to join but won't be discussing them until I have an idea of how they may pan out.

A relative also emailed me a list of paid survey websites. The list is incredibly long! I don't think I could ever evaluate all of these, although I'm sure some will clearly be garbage the moment I look at them. I plan on leafing through it over the course of this week, however.

I have a lense on Squidoo, predictably called Shiny Little Pennies.

Just Joined Two More Sites

...shall we see how they pan out?

I joined EasyHits4U in order to try to get some traffic. Not that many people know about this blog. I think it's a shame since I really do try to be genuinely helpful, and I try to update regularly. If you arrived here via EasyHits4U, please spend a moment to read this blog. Even if you think ppc/paid survey/review for money/get free stuff search engines are a load of crap, I hope that my enthusiasm and wit will make this blog worth reading.
For those interested in EasyHits4U, you can't have Adsense ads up. It's against the program policies! That's why I have taken my ads down for now, until I get a decent flow of traffic. You can actually make money directly off of EasyHits4U, but honestly, it's not going to be a lot even if you sit there and click madly all day long. I like to keep it running in the background and click when I remember to. While some of the sites are just Internet crappy crap, I have actually found some neat sites and fellow bloggers through it.

I have joined Points2Shop. I don't yet know how it will pan out. Unfortunately, it is one of those "COMPLETE FREE OFFERS" sites, which I loathe. Yes, you can play games for points, but the games are limited and you have to spend points in order to compete - no guarantee that you will win more points. Still, it has daily surveys, and you get a point just for logging in every day. That's 365 free points per year (which comes out to about $3.65, so don't get too excited).
The interesting thing about this one is that there's no dinking around with gift cards. You buy things directly from Amazon with your points, and they seem to have a 1 point: 1 US dollar ratio.

And, of course, the well-known Neobux. I've held off on joining because I've heard good and bad things about it. You only get 1 cent per ad you click. On the other hand, clicking ads isn't much work, is it? It's one of those things you can just do for 2 minutes a day. You get about 4 ads. That's, uh, $1.00 a month. Minimum payout - I'm not sure, I think it's 2 bucks. I'll check later. I guess Neobux is another one of those "get referrals to make anything worthwhile" websites.

But I'd have to say that one of the websites with the best payoff-to-effort ratio is still Swagbucks. That's why I have some advice for you:

Scour.com and More about GamingLagoon, Hits4Pay

Hit cashout on Ciao again. My first time, it took a week and a half - this time, it took 3 days. Why? Well, now I have a backlog of 44 reviews. The more reviews you write, the faster you make money, I suppose. I guess I'd better get cracking on those reviews again, eh?

I've also returned to my Scour.com efforts. I dropped it before because of complaints that Scour was not paying people who hit cashout - they were banning people and other shady things instead. However, I have since decided that perhaps this was because people were violating the Terms of Service (I see it constantly on other websites, right?) and unlike certain online counterparts, Scour actually DOES something about this. The only way to find out is to try to hit cashout on Scour myself, and either verify that it's legit or get conveniently banned. We shall see. Either way, it's gonna be a while - I've only got 90 points. If you want to give it a shot in the meantime, I say go for it.

GamingLagoon is on my shitlist. GamingLagoon has been sending me spam mails about their NEW OFFERS, so I signed up for another free "send me spam email" type offer to see if they've gotten any better about denying everything. For those not in the know, GamingLagoon is another free gift card/free stuff/free money type website. You can save up points to get stuff like a Nintendo DS, convert your points to Paypal money, or get gift cards with them. It's not nearly as good as Swagbucks, in my opinion - earning points is super slow, you have to sign up for "offers" (most of which involve too much money, or too much personal information), and they tend to reject the offers you've submitted as completed and refuse to reward you points, even when you have proof. I'll update this blog post with some images later, in order to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Nonetheless, persistent members claim that they have gotten their gift cards and such, I highly suspect that the only REAL way to do this is to recruit aggressively. If you're into that, I guess GamingLagoon can probably work pretty well for you. But I can't recruit people in clear conscience if I know that there's no way for them to be successful on the website without recruiting a whole bunch of people, themselves. I guess it's all about what you are or are not willing to do in order to earn points.

Hits4Pay still wants my social security number, but they're not getting it. I doubt I'll ever make enough off a PTC website to warrant needing my SSN for tax purposes.

Legitimacy Verified - Associated Content and Swagbucks

I actually got my Associated Content payment deposited in my Paypal account several days ago, but a lot has happened since then in my personal life. I had to put a few things on hold for a while, and I have not been able to update this blog.

Here's the screenshot of the payment. It's only $3, but it's $3 more than I had, right?





As for Swagbucks, I got my first Amazon gift certificate code today. I actually redeemed the Swagbucks a few days ago, but it takes some time for them to post the code (my guess is that they request codes from Amazon either in batches every week, or else they request them on an individual basis, I don't know). You don't have to worry about missing it - they send you an email when the code is ready. When you go to My Account and check under My Gift Cards, there it is. I think it's clever - this way, you don't have to worry about your spam filter causing you to miss a gift card code that was emailed to you.

Here's a series of screenshots, from putting in my request for the gift card to actually entering it into my Amazon.com account. I have pixelated anything that might compromise the security of my account or otherwise cause problems (including the gift card code, my last name, and order numbers). Please do not email me asking for these things "as proof". I'm not going to send them to you, because I'm not stupid. Anyway:




And now the actual redemption of the gift code:





So there you go. I'm now $5.00 richer, which isn't a whole lot but it's free money so I can't really complain. You won't be rolling in dough but if you're a gamer looking for a way to support your monthly WoW habit, or you're trying to figure out how to buy birthday or Christmas gifts that you otherwise can't afford, just run a few searches a day (some in the morning, some at night) on Swagbucks.com. It's not that hard to win, and it's somewhat useful as well. I haven't downloaded the toolbar because I generally loathe toolbars, but I've heard that it's quite handy, so maybe I'll change my mind.

As for this $5.00, it's going to help pay for my brother's birthday present.